Politics of Development in Africa (Gov 1135), undergraduate lecture, Spring 2021, Fall 2023. Syllabus

This lecture is an introduction to the politics and political economy of development in modern Africa. Topics include the legacies of colonial rule, state formation, state failure and conflict, democratization and democratic erosion, corruption and political accountability, the role of foreign aid, climate change, and migration. Readings draw from comparative politics, political economy, history, geography, and development economics. The course puts an emphasis on research design, evaluating causal claims, and evidence-based policy solutions

Politics and Economics (Gov 2160), graduate seminar, co-taught with Torben Iversen, Fall 2018, Spring 2023, Fall 2023. Syllabus

This seminar is on the political economy of policymaking and institutional change. Readings include a mixture of foundational approaches and recent research, covering a variety of methodological perspectives. The topical emphasis is on democracy, accountability, inequality, redistribution, and growth – both in developed and developing countries. The course provides students interested in these topics an overview over the existing literature (with a focus on recent, exciting work), an understanding of key unanswered questions and puzzles, as well as a set of theoretical and methodological tools that can be employed to answer those questions and puzzles. One core objective is to integrate scholarship on established and developing democracies.

Political Economy of Development (Gov 2129), graduate seminar, Spring 2019, Fall 2020. Syllabus

This graduate seminar provides an overview of the research frontier on political accountability and governance in developing countries, including democracies, electoral autocracies, and authoritarian regimes. Topics include democratization and democratic erosion, voting behavior, clientelism, accountability, the bureaucracy, and the role of foreign aid. While including some foundational readings, the syllabus puts emphasis on recent work. Readings primarily draw from comparative politics, political economy, and development economics. In addition to theory and empirics, the course focuses on the nuts and bolts of collecting qualitative and quantitative primary data. Parts of this seminar are hands-on, and students are expected to have a background in causal inference and statistical programming. Students will replicate and extend the data analysis of a recent study, write a peer review of an academic article, and write a research proposal or pre-analysis plan.